Bernstein
Trouble in Tahiti/A Dinner Engagement, Royal College of Music review - slick, witty and warmSaturday, 29 June 2019
It’s a clever decision to pair Lennox Berkeley’s A Dinner Engagement with Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti. The first is all about happily-ever-after, while the second is all about what happens next. The optimistic grime and smog of 1950s... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Mendelssohn, Shostakovich, Bernstein in ParisSaturday, 05 January 2019
Mendelssohn: Symphonies 1-5, Overtures, A Midsummer Night’s Dream London Symphony Orchestra/Sir John Eliot Gardiner (LSO Live)That Mendelssohn wrote five symphonies is widely known, though I'd wager that 99% of listeners only know 40% of them... Read more... |
Candide, LSO, Alsop, Barbican review - nearly the best of all possible...Monday, 10 December 2018
When the biggest laugh in Bernstein’s Candide goes to a narrator’s mention of how nationalism was sweeping through Europe, you may have a problem. Still, the Bernstein Centenary has been among the best of all possible anniversary celebrations this... Read more... |
CD: Barbra Streisand - WallsThursday, 01 November 2018
If there's anyone on this godforsaken planet who is fully entitled to emote their way through a mash-up of “Imagine” and “What a Wonderful World”, it's Barbra Streisand, right? This, after all, is the woman who was able to deliver “Life on Mars” as... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bernstein, English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble, Kubrick's MusicSaturday, 20 October 2018
Bernstein: The Complete Naxos Recordings Marin Alsop (conductor) (Naxos)One of the best reasons for investing in this superb Bernstein box set lasts less than two minutes and isn't even by Lennie. Turn to Disc 7 and John Corigliano’s... Read more... |
Anderson & Roe, RLPO, Tali, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool review - measured fireSaturday, 06 October 2018
There must be something of a beauty parade going on in Liverpool now that Vasily Petrenko has called time on his tenure at Philharmonic Hall. After all, someone will need to step into his shoes from 2021 after he departs for the Royal... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Bernstein, Rachmaninov, Jeffrey RodenSaturday, 22 September 2018
Bernstein: Wonderful Town Danielle de Niese, Alysha Umphress, Nathan Gunn, London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle (LSO Live)Wonderful Town’s one problem is that it isn't On the Town or West Side Story. If you didn’t already know those... Read more... |
Prom 69, Skride, Boston SO, Nelsons / Proms at...Cadogan Hall 8, Berlin Philharmonic Soloists review - sophisticated limitsTuesday, 04 September 2018
Crazy days are here again – many of us are lucky not to have been born when the last collectve insanity blitzed the world – and nothing in Shostakovich seems too outlandish for reality. On the other hand, there's a growing movement to liberate his... Read more... |
Proms at...Cadogan Hall 7, Giunta, Sikich, review - dazzlement in Bernstein and beyondTuesday, 28 August 2018
“What drivel! What nonsense! What escapist Techicolor twaddle!” No, not a description of Wallis Giunta’s scintillating BBC Proms at Cadogan Hall recital, it’s a lyric from “What A Movie”, Leonard Bernstein’s outstanding stand-alone number from his... Read more... |
Edinburgh Festival 2018 review: Benedetti, Baltimore SO, Alsop - puzzlingly tameMonday, 27 August 2018
The Edinburgh International Festival scored quite a coup in securing the services of Bernstein protégée Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on the very day of the great composer/conductor’s centenary – and for the festival’s penultimate... Read more... |
Prom 57, On the Town, LSO, Wilson review - symphonic dances and sassy vocalsSunday, 26 August 2018
1944 was one hell of a year for Bernstein the composer, with a perfect ballet and a near-perfect musical sharing a general theme of three sailors loose in New York, but nothing else, in their boisterous originality. Perhaps their only equal among... Read more... |
Prom 39, West Side Story, Wilson review - best heard on the radioMonday, 13 August 2018
In West Side Story, those great, familiar songs just keep on coming. Already by the end of the first half an hour, there have been “The Jet Song”, “Something’s Coming”, “Maria”, “Tonight” and “America”, and there is no shortage of them still to come... Read more... |
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